Mr. Crowley

I just like to listen to music...as long as there's a guitar there, I'm happy.....

:D :D :D

Vic

Ok two things

1) Put it this way. I am much faster and more technically proficient in my solos than Hendrix...Does that mean im better than him?!

2) Plently of people play much faster than Randy - Jason Becker, Ygnwie Malmsteen, Michael Angelo to name a tiny ammount

Dont get me wrong Randy was possibly best guitarist of any regular metal band out there, along with Van Halen, but you're measuring him against other guitarists in the wrong way. Also Jimi's rythem were often very complex. eg Voodoo Child, Machine Gun. His rythem and lead would often blur into one sound.

PS Jason Becker is the greatest guitarist of all time! 8) Check out 'Air' and 'Altittudes'
This man smokes RR! Watch: http://stu.westga.edu/~jmatthe2/WebPages/Videos/BeckerSerrana.mpg

and check out Michael Angelo for speed! http://stu.westga.edu/~jmatthe2/WebPages/Videos/MichaelAngelo.wmv

I have to say that all of them are great alot just depends what each person feels and looks at. I like Eddie Van Halen alot and I also like Randy Rhodes, Joe Satriani and steve Vai are fantastic love to watch them, But I am very open to music and Eric Clapton is more a blues player and there is alot of things he does with his music that touches me in a different way realy can bring out some emotion from inside past relationships or whatever, Jimmy Page had alot of Blues with his music as well, So keep your heart open to all players and what they stand for each have their own style and they are all great.

:D

those clips made me cringe. it's just too much, way too much. i think those people's music is just flat. they can play alot of notes really fast...great. it's still really really uninteresting for me. IMO these players are just one trick ponies. hendrix was definitely multi tooled...he could go seamlessly from great rythym to searing leads. that Michael Angelo video was extremely one sided and really all it tells me is that he knows how to make notes on a guitar, but i don't really hear any real music coming from those amps.

those clips made me cringe. it's just too much, way too much. i think those people's music is just flat. they can play alot of notes really fast...great. it's still really really uninteresting for me. IMO these players are just one trick ponies.

Well I'd certainly agree with Michael Angelo, but if have the chance, or if you download music, you gotta here 'Air' and 'Opus Pocus' by Jason Becker - That is how you turn technical playing into music!
If ever your to give a technical player a chance this is the man... Really blows that he got ALS and can no longer play :(

Black. Definitely black. There may be many other colors out there but black is my favorite color. I can't understand why anyone would think that oh say yellow is any good at all. Sure they are both colors and there is no real way to determine which one is 'better' but black is most assuredly my favorite color. I understand that in opinion polls the color blue always wins the favorite color nod. Can't understand why. Black looks much cooler. But color preference is a bit like guitar playing, it's subjective. It's in the eye of the beholder.

I can give you reasons why the color black is the best color and I can give you reasons why Ygnwie Malmsteen or Neil Young are the best guitar players but those reasons are somewhat subjective. Objectively you can say Ygnwie Malmsteen is way faster than Neil Young, you can't say that he's better than Neil Young except in your opinion of the two. You can like one over the other and say it's because one plays faster or one plays with more 'emotion' and you can give objective reasons but those opinions would be based on criteria we may not agree on. 'The best guitar player is the one who plays the fastest' - could be one of your criteria, you could say 'The fastest player who has the most hit songs is the best player' and you could find someone to annoint as the best player. The guy next to you can look at you shake his head and say you're completely wrong. I could say that Johnny Cash is the best even though his technical playing was not impressive but I could argue that he touched more people and sold more records than most of these other dudes and so he is the best. I could tell you that George Benson is clearly the best since I remember seeing him live in 1980 and he just blew me away and touched my soul. Well, for me then George Benson would be the best.

You see these top ten or top hundred lists all the time. Most beautiful people, best bands, best tv shows, best movies. Those lists, like any list of best guitarists are necessarily subjective - they are only the opinions of various people and you should not take them seriously when it comes to what you like or what you think is the best. You have your opinion the same as me or anyone else. And a funny thing about those opinions, you may not notice it yet but opinions about various things change as we change through life. Whoever you think is the best right now may not be who you think is the best when you get older. Otherwise we'd all be singing Barney and Raffi songs.

Definitely to a point some lead guitarists can go way overboard to where you hear nothing but noise. No disrespect intended but give me a good melodic "slow" lead that enhances the song, over some speed demon who is only showing his speed and not his ability to write melodies.

Michael Angelo made me :shock: . I had never seen him play before and actually noted that amongst the speed was alot of enhancements that followed the background music instead of the other way around.

The first video was a lot of the speed but none of the music, IMHO.

George Benson was pretty awesome.

Uh...I hav a feeling we have all had this coversation on the board 100 times over in one form or another.

Im saying SKILL. SKILL wise Van halen, RR, and Steve vai are SKILLED MUCH MUCH more then Jimi hendrix in my opinion.
Are we talking making music or the precision polishing of optics? Loosen up :wink:

Black. Definitely black. There may be many other colors out there but black is my favorite color. I can't understand why anyone would think that oh say yellow is any good at all. Sure they are both colors and there is no real way to determine which one is 'better' but black is most assuredly my favorite color. I understand that in opinion polls the color blue always wins the favorite color nod. Can't understand why. Black looks much cooler. But color preference is a bit like guitar playing, it's subjective. It's in the eye of the beholder.........

Exactly!! Great analogy.

For what it's worth, I sat through a Michael Angelo guitar "clinic" last year. I walked away thoroughly unimpressed. Yes, he's incredibly fast. Yes he's very physically talented. But to me, what he was doing wasn't musical or artistic. The only analogy I can think of is that it was like he was trying to create a painting, but he was really doing a paint-by-numbers (really, really fast).

Listen to what you want to listen to. Like you want to like. If it touches you, let it touch you. Let your interpretation of what your hearing be the only criteria for its "greatness"

There......I'm all done waxing philosophical now :)

I personally don't really get the "guitar hero' thing.

Look at Steve Vai. Lots of people talk about what a great player he is, but most of the stuff I have heard from him blows. It may be hard to play, but it doesn't sound all that great, at least to me. He is the Kiss of Death, too, because every band I have heard of him being in fades to obsucrity without exception. Is he even playing now? He played with David Lee Roth, where is he now?

Steve Vai did play on the first PIL record, I am told, and I dig that, but otherwise I just don't get it. I don't get Yngwie either. Or Satriani. SRV is ok, but I don't own any of his musci and probably won't.

I get more joy out of a Ramones tune than any of the legends' stuff.

This is, of course, just my opinion, and in reality if there is music out there you dig then go with it! That's what makes music so great.

I think it's totally great for people to like people like Vai and Satriani and Yngwie etc etc etc. I own a few Satriani CDs. I like them. THey're by far not my favorite and i listen to them sporadically, but i like them...for what it's worth. I just don't see how that type of fast-played guitarage is really worth anything significant musically. And it just bothers me that there are people who dig it almost exclusively. Dont get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with this style of playing, but i think if you think of guitar playing as SOLELY based on people like Vai, Malmsteen, Satch, Rhodes, Wylde...any speed demon...then your perception of what guitar playing is is skewed. I tihnk a person who makes music using only a D and G chord, and making it work, to be more impressive than a person who uses just physical skill. With enouogh practice i think anyone can be a Michael Angelo. Or a Randy Rhodes. But you sure as hell can't be Jimi Hendrix no matter how much you practice.

George Benson was pretty awesome.

Uh...I hav a feeling we have all had this coversation on the board 100 times over in one form or another.

That's a good feeling. An accurate feeling. This sounds like a discussion that will never end.

I personally don't really get the "guitar hero' thing.
Is he even playing now? He played with David Lee Roth, where is he now?

er, I went to see Steve Vai play in October actually. He still fills all seats.
Have a listen to Tender Surrender for something more melodic, and Juice is a cool hyper boogie type song. In fact the whole Alien Love Secrets album is really great cos its almost completely rythem based. Something which the likes of Satch, Becker etc arent so good at!

Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but...

Played from the head? Taken that way, all the great composers (and classical musicians) have to be put into that category. After all, there's not too much room for improvisation in much of Vivaldi's, JS Bach's, or any other composer's work. Yet, classical musicians manage to play from the heart at the same time. Just because a piece of music is preplanned, doesn't make it impossible to put feeling in it. That's why Stern and Perlman were so good.

Actually, Google "Baroque Improvisation." I believe Bach was a quite proficient improviser...but that's another story :)